


Exchange

by StAnni



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Break Up, F/M, Older Characters, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 03:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19039930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StAnni/pseuds/StAnni
Summary: His head is down-turned, shoulders strong and tense - his fingers are interlinked – elbows on his knees, he is frowning.  She knows this look, and in that very second, that moment, she is back in front of Wayne Manor – eight years ago – standing at the bolted door.  An abandoned girl in front of an abandoned house.





	Exchange

Bruce knocks and she knows that it is him, because apart from the pizza delivery guy, he is the only one who knows where she lives.

When she opens the door he is leaning against the frame, crowding it and she pushes him back before he comes inside. “Nope.” she says and behind him, the pizza delivery guy does in fact saunter up, and just in time. 

She exchanges the money for the box over Bruce’s shoulder and he watches this all with very mild amusement – or, perhaps, only with a restrained irritation, and glances at the pizza guy as he leaves. 

As Selina moves to close the door he puts his boot between the door and the frame, holding it open with a hand. “Wait.” He says, an almost apologetic tone – albeit without an actual apology. 

She gives him an expectant look as she tosses the pizza box on the kitchenette counter just a few feet away. “For what?” She asks, crossing her arms and he does an internal sigh expression - eyes on hers. She raises her eyebrows expectantly. 

“May I come inside?” He asks, and it’s not “can I come in?” or “Lemme in, will ya” it’s that perfect clipped voice and the even tone – still the same from when they were just teenagers – that just seems to rub her either the right way or the wrong way every time.  
It’s the wrong way tonight.

“You can apologize from there.” She says, settling in, making it clear that she is not moving an inch.

Unsurprisingly his jaw tightens and his eyes darken and man, for an ex-boyfriend and a thorn in her side he sure is still pretty smouldering. “That’s not what this is.” 

The problem with having grown up together, having seen so much of each other during the worst times and the best – is that everything goes and there is no such thing as pulling punches. No apologies. Crash and burn – come back for more.

It’s a stand-off, literally, but she gives in, rolling her eyes and stepping back – because the pizza smells good and staring at Bruce is giving her that familiar curl of pleasure and murderous contempt. “Yeah, okay. What do you want?” 

She flips the pizza box open and picks off a piece of cheese before she goes to her fridge, taking out one beer, for herself. And since he hasn’t made any attempt to explain his presence to her yet, she repeats herself “Bruce. What?”

When they were younger she was taller than him – perhaps even a whole head at one point. Now she has to tilt her head up to look him in the eye.

The fact that he thinks before he speaks is not completely out of place. It’s nothing new and certainly doesn’t mean that she needs to feel a knot in her stomach. But they have been on the outs for a while, so she watches him, trying to gauge him in his careful silence. “There is something I need to talk to you about, about us.”

He’s so much older now – nearing his thirties. Handsome and stoic. But she still sees the haphazard emotions of the boy she knew behind his brown eyes, she is tethered there and the serious timbre of his voice makes her set down the beer. Dust her hands and fold her arms – steadying herself. “Bruce. We literally just broke up two weeks ago. Are you sure you want to talk now?” 

She doesn’t mean it to be mean. But they have different takes on this. There have been shifts, and rifts and reconciliations. Just in the past year they attempted another draining, exhaustive go at an exclusive and committed relationship. It lasted seven months, which was a week or so longer than the time before, and a whole two months longer than the time before that. 

The hard truth is that they have had so many starts and stops that whatever this is, it defies the confines of the definitions of a “relationship”. 

She’s, honestly, just happy he came back. And she’s never been a stickler for the formalistic, so she’ll take it as it comes. He’s different. She knows that. But two weeks have barely given them enough time to feel the wounds, let alone heal them.

He doesn’t blink, taking her in. His expression is unnerving because it is unreadable.

Without answering her he takes off his jacket, walks the rest of the way into her studio apartment and sits down quietly on the side of her bed. He looks tired, sad – which is not novel, but she does feel bad about being such a bitch about letting him inside.

She walks to the space of floor in front of him and waits.

His head is down-turned, shoulders strong and tense - his fingers are interlinked – elbows on his knees, he is frowning. She knows this look, and in that very second, that moment, she is back in front of Wayne Manor – eight years ago – standing at the bolted door. An abandoned girl in front of an abandoned house. 

She blinks it away.

“I never told you about Rachel.” He says and his voice is so temperate and gentle that for a second she thinks that she must have misheard, or he must not have said anything. But then he looks up at her.

“I met her when I was away. And she is here now. In Gotham.”  
And then he pause and with mustered strength, says it. He just says it. Quietly. Like a bullet it whispers through her heart “And I love her.”

If time can stop, it stops. 

“What do you mean?” She can hear herself ask, but she already knows before he rubs his face, something he only started to do a year or so ago, before he sighs and looks up at her. Before he says it “This is over. It’s over.”

And she can see them in profile, a watcher’s point of view – a heart split in two as a man, focused, on the trajectory of justice, of good, sits on a bed in a messy studio apartment of a kid grown to a petty criminal – petulant and scraping, just some girl who once thought she was someone to someone else. 

“I’m sorry, Selina.”

He watches her and off his level stare she knows that, on the outside, she must look as calm as a frozen lake. 

“Right.” She breathes, without inflection, without anything.

He looks at her again and there is something harder in his eyes, something solid and impenetrable. She knows that look.  
An abandoned girl in front of an abandoned house.

Outside is cold air, measured breaths – a glassy, silent surface.  
Inside is ashes, just ashes.


End file.
